Inside Kirstie Allsopp’s secret wedding and love story with Ben Andersen

After the “happily unmarried” TV presenter had long claimed marrying her partner Ben Andersen was against the grain, Kirstie Allsopp’s secret wedding came as a surprise.

But this week, mother-of-two Kirstie, 53, shocked fans by announcing she and property tycoon Ben had tied the knot after 22 years together. Kirstie has claimed that she tried to keep the wedding private, but the paparazzi discovered her engagement and waited outside the Mayfair residence.

The Location, Location, Location, Location star took matters into her own hands and released some of their own images of the couple’s unexpected big day after Kirstie and Ben exchanged vows in a Love Actually inspired do. Kirstie and her new husband were captured in a stunning gold sequinned dress in a photo that she shared on social media.

Writing alongside the sweet photo, Kirstie said: “It’s a huge privilege listening to your son give a speech at your wedding, which is one reason Ben &amp, I are looking so cheery in this picture taken by @catherinebradleyphotography.

I appreciate all the kind and interesting comments, but I also felt our wedding should be private, which is luckily the case. Unfortunately, it turned out there was a hidden pap, so I’ve since shared a few of our own photos.

“The upside is that at least I get to thank some of the lovely people who worked so hard, on such a short notice, to make our wedding pretty special.” Kirstie thanked a number of people for helping her dream come true on the day, including the dress designers who added sleeves to her gown after she purchased it during a sale two weeks prior.

I always wanted to marry in the same church as my parents and grandparents, and luckily I already know that we lived happily ever after.

Kirstie’s love life before Ben

Like all couples, Kirstie and Ben have had ups and downs in their story, with Kirstie initially believing she wasn’t “girlfriend material”, after a man she dated made the rude comment. She had a dream job and was ready to start a family before their first meeting. Speaking to Stylist mag previously, she said: “No one was interested in me in my twenties. I had ‘ please marry me ‘ tattooed on my forehead. I needed to get married and have children so badly.

She told the Mirror separately: “One chap said, ‘ Kirstie, you will make someone a fantastic wife but you are not girlfriend material. ‘ I kept going for good-looking s***s”. Despite having bad luck in love, Kirstie had a choice to have a child of her own, declaring in 2014, “I had planned to have a date in mind that I was going to try for a baby and I had lined up a couple of people who I had asked if I could have their child and they said yes.”

Homewrecker rumours

But in 2004, Kirstie’s luck changed, when she met Ben at a party for prospective Tory MP Orlando Fraser. His ex-wife and his ex-friend, Theresa, who he had been separated from for five months, introduced him to him through her former bedales school.

She refuted rumors that she had “stole” Ben from his ex, telling the Mirror in 2009, “Of course people fall in love with other people’s husbands, but luckily when I met Ben and fell in love with him, he was no longer anybody else’s husband.”

Speaking to the Mail at the time, Ben’s ex-wife Theresa, with whom he shares two sons, said: “I love Ben very much and I am terrifically sad that our marriage is over”.

Ben’s refusal to marry again

Just 10 days into Kirstie and Ben’s relationship, he told her he has no plans to get married again, following the breakdown of his first. However, despite telling her it wasn’t his thing, he did say he wanted to have children with her.

Kirstie told the Mirror: “It was almost like a proposal. I thought it was appropriate to say “OK. Ben is a wonderful person who I adore a lot.” In their relationship, Kirstie has acknowledged that Ben still enjoys wearing the trousers, telling Easy Living magazine in November 2011 that “he is happy and the kids have a great time too.” Your marriage to your partner will last a lot longer than your homecoming children will. When your children are young, that relationship might collapse, and you might not be able to save it. So I let Ben decide what we do over the weekend.

She added: “It’s got nothing to do with feminism, it’s to do with consideration, Happiness is about making the people that you love happy. I do put Ben first, but he also puts me first”.

Commitment to stepsons

Kirstie has hit out at stereotypes about step-parents, saying traditionally, stepmothers are seen as “bad news”. But despite negative connotations, she has put “more thought and effort” into her stepchildren than she has anything else in her life.

The presenter says she is a “loving and love” stepmother, having been in her stepsons Orion and Hal’s lives since they were five and two. Writing for the Mail, Kirstie said in 2021: “And it’s not just being a stepmother that is seen as a negative. Some people, in contrast to my own sons, seem to be quite keen to leave off bad reviews about my stepchildren. They seem to believe that I’ll somehow want to hear negative things about my stepsons because they are my brothers, which I most certainly don’t. If anything, I’m more protective of them than I am the younger two”.

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Source: Mirror